Statistically speaking, a 400 person focus group is going to so accurately represent the population from which they were selected it is almost overkill. Bear in mind, however, that they don't represent users in general, but computer users that are smart enough to get into college, aged roughly 18-19 years old, and open minded enough to participate in a college survey regarding passwords on computers.
But yes, 400 people is way more than enough - heck you can usually predict the outcome of most elections using exit polls asking less people than that.
What kind of freak goes out when the sun is shining? Jeez, next someone on Slashdot is going to admit to eating garlic or having a mirror in the house.
I have long struggled with the issue of hacking on my laptop in the daylight. Funny thing, the old LCD screens that everybody hated on the early laptops worked GREAT out in direct sunlight. I would love to get my hands on one of those with a decent resolution - even though it would not be color it would be slick for use outside.
Many times I have tried to take my regular lappy outside and if the sun is shining directly on you, forget it. Even a deck umbrella or a big shady tree generally won't do it for you. You need to be roughly three degrees of freedom away from the sunlight (no direct sunlight, no reflected sunlight (like bouncing off the sidewalk onto you) and no two bounce sunlight (like sunlight bouncing off one wall, off another wall, then onto you.) Under a bridge, back in away from the light, or in a garage with the door open, those are pretty much ok but first and second generation reflected light simply overwhelms the screen (like using a laptop in a room or on a plane with the windows open, even if the sun isn't shining directly onto the screen.)
Overheating shouldn't be an issue, particularly if your laptop is running on battery and steps down the CPU.
The biggest environmental factor I would be aware of = keep your eyes and your hand on your laptop. All the time, be aware of your laptop. A nice laptop has ~steal me~ written all over it and in less time than it takes to go walk the lizard a n'er-do-well will swipe your $1,500 laptop and all your un-backed-up data (which is probably worth more than the laptop.)
Even half an hour is being generous, on your side. As a consultant the smallest unit of time I was even allowed to to quote was four hours, meaning that the client was looking at at least a $500 bill every time I got involved (or if I was involved, each time they changed directions or wanted something done differently because they changed their mind.) Needless to say, I was allowed to stay focused on the actual project and rarely got hit with mickey mouse crap like changing the colors or fonts or rearranging the buttons on the screen because the secretary likes the word 'Yes' instead of 'Ok'.
Granted if it was something reasonable and I could do it without shifting gears (mentally) I would usually slipstream it into the work I was doing and not write it up. If it was redoing work that I had already done, or worse if I recommended doing it one way and they mandated I did it some other way and after I was knee deep in it decide to go yet another direction or even in the direction I originally suggested... there is significant rework that needs to be done and the associated ramp down / ramp up time is often a big chunk.
I run a WinCE handheld (a damn old one too, HP Jornada 680) with a wifi connection and the TermServer client - runs pretty nice too. Win2003Server on a 640x240 touch screen is almost usable on a regular fashion, and the 75% sized real keyboard is good enough for interaction with the machine (sucks for touchtyping, but still better than nothing.) It is like having an instant on baby laptop with an 8 hour battery and a P4/2.4GHz CPU and a Gig of RAM and a tiny screen, fold up and fit in my lab coat pocket.
I wonder if there is an X windows client for the old WinCE / Pocket PC handhelds.
Windows has one-keystroke shutdown if you have one of the keyboards with the little 'Hibernate' buttons. My Logitech has one right above the F1 key; I accidently re-discover it from time to time.
For you or I, or someone walking around doing impulse buying, it is a 2 hour affair. For an ex-employee of the grocery store that is intimately familiar with the product placement of everything in the store, buying a list of specific items would run somewhere between 1 and 4 different items a minute, no time increase for multiples of the same item. Creating the shopping lists such that they were coordinated with the layout of the store would speed this up.
If they had the flexibility of a 4 to 6 hour delivery window, several different orders could be rounded up and put onto the same delivery van for economies of scale during the delivery process.
If there was a way to encourage the customers to get their orders in at least 12 hours in advance and still have the flexibility of a 4 - 6 hour delivery windows, the scheduling process can scale even higher. Allow for 'immediate processing' at a premium, but give incentives to help the queue form in a smoother manner.
I agree that the margins could be much higher if it was the store running the service, but I wonder if it would be even marginally profitable as a third party service. A lot of unemployeed high school kids could be doing something like this if the front end was developed smooth enough.
You have been doing 'computers' a while and can feel the subtle vibrations and harmonics that happen when the computer is doing different 'stuff'. Mostly how the hard drive accesses all the different things all over the drive, but possibly noticing the blinkenlighten of the NIC also. You know how it feels when something is working right, and you know when something 'feels' wrong. Also, I guess sound plays into it also. Anyways, you can get a gut level feeling of what is wrong based on when it starts 'feeling' wrong, and then you have some sort of lead as to where to look to fix it.
Eight short beeps on boot doesn't mean a thing to a user. Eight short beeps to you or I means the BIOS detected a video problem.
I was quick to distinguish between the mundane obvious rants that weren't worth explaining (ie, why do I have to turn on the computer so other people can print) and genuine support calls (ie, can you help me set up a spam filter.)
When someone asks a question along the lines of 'why do I have to...' or 'well the manual says I should be able to...' it is no longer an intelligent conversation leading to resolution. There is nothing you can possibly tell a user that will change the fact that 'that's how you do it'. Why do you hit F1 for help? Because you do. There isn't a reason, really, other than that. Why I have to hit CTRL ALT DEL to log in? Yes, you and I know the history of the entire Ct-Alt-Del key combo, and explaining it to the user isn't going to change anything, and they really don't care. If they are complaining about piddly stuff that is simple computer operation protocol, a little snipe back says 'I'm here to fix real problems, not listen to you whine about having to hit three buttons in order to start the computer.'
The IT Guy sounds like a prick, and there is a difference between his sarcasm and my being a little snappy in order to get across the point 'user, you know that is a stupid question, I know it is a stupid question, if I have to walk to your desk and point out that the computer doesn't work very well if it isn't plugged in I will smack you.'
Not that it matters much because I'm not a tech anymore so I don't get to do this any more (purely development environment now.)
And yes, your IT Guy reads all your email. He also knows what you earn, including bonuses and commissions. And he knows every thing you do on the Internet, because he watches you do it.
Either you are a master of the English language and are extending it to better express yourself, or that is the most fucked up aberration of written English I have seen in a very long time*. Or you are making fun of me, in which case... good job/grin.
A drum solo inserted into the middle of a song during a live concert, played freestyle, as an artistic expression of the musician... this is improvisation and it has nothing to do with the music notes written on the sheet of paper, nor the original intent of the song writer. It has everything to do with hitting random notes as they come to your head and stringing them together in a way that becomes beautiful music. Improvisation is about doing it wrong, and having what comes out sound right. That is what makes it artistic expression, and why only the masters can do it correctly - until you are a master you really don't understand what makes 'good music' and can't invent a string of good sounding music off the top of your head while you are performing it.
Same with language skills.
* Footnote : actually I have been to FARK so it isn't even close to the most fucked up aberration of written English I have seen in a very long time. Prideworthy - yes, but not record setting by a long shot.
I can see it now. New guy shows up at the office, first day on the job. Starts talking and in the same breath utters the words 'kibibyte' and 'gibibyte'. Two of the guys on the team hold him down and start beating him senseless, two others start picking apart his resume and application paperwork to get him fired that same day on a technicality.
Anybody that actually says either of those words in my presence is getting bitchslapped, no doubt, and probably sent packing during the next set of layoffs.
Why does the grocery store have to be the one filling the order, doing the delivery, or hosting the web site?
Here's a thought : affix a known order charge to the service, let people freeform their order or make a check list for them of known things with relatively known prices, when the order comes in print it out, drive to the grocery store, fill the basket, pay for it yourself, charge their credit card in the van on the way over (including the $10 or $15 or a % of the total) and drive them to their house. The lowest end grunts at the grocery store that have to run price checks and put returned merchandise back on the shelves know the store inside out so they could be hired as order fillers / delivery guys, you could pay them 50% more than what the grocery store pays and still make a profit. Perhaps work out a deal with the grocery store giving them ALL of your business in exchange for a 10% (or whatever) discount.
Need to scale up a little more, hire another grunt. The massive start-up costs in creating robotic facilities and food storage warehouses are completely avoided.
Computers have numbers running through their veins. Slowly counting to a computer is like looking at a person and chanting 'blood, blood, blood, blood, blood.' Try that with me and I would do whatever you want too, hell yea.
It's funny because that's how Americans really talk. Bet they didn't teach that line at the VPJ Acadamy of English.
Customer asks : Why do I have to hit the Start button when I want to turn off the computer?
Not how Americans talk : I am very happily to be helping you with your problems. You see it says right here that for you to be shutting down your computer you must be pressing the Start button and then verily nicely selecting the shut down option. It was my pleasure to be helpingly assisting you.
How an American that didn't personally know the caller would reply : Because you have to.
How an American that knows the caller on a personal basis would answer : Because you fucking have to.
Once someone has mastered a particular instrument in music, they then enhance and personalize the music, make it -their- music, through improvisation. The English language is the same way - develop a mastery of the language and then extend it to better express yourself. A first year English student making up words and pronouncing them wrong, using the wrong tense and timber... that's just ugly. George W Bush making up words to better express his point - that's funny. The word 'fucking' is in the language for a reason, both as an adverb and an adjective - and when used correctly adds significant value towards expressing a particular sentiment. I wouldn't use it as a verb in an office setting however, that would be wrong.
To all the overseas Tier I tech support phone professionals : next time you get a call that is so blatantly obvious, something along the lines of 'Why do I have to (do something obvious)?'... say 'Because you fucking have to.' The caller will relate, will understand the reply, and will probably respect you more for expressing yourself in a manner that doesn't try to hide behind technical jargon - you will be talking their language. No joke.
Develop a strong ancillary relationship with the people you work with, bond with them out of the office (that's the multiplayer arena with the blue and white part on top, green part on the bottom, and has vehicles) and after you have known them for a while you would be surprised at how well they react to all of those statements.
Why do I have to hold my mouse button down and move it to highlight a block of text, and why do I have to hold down the CTRL key before I hit the C key to copy the text to the buffer, and why do I have to click the Start button when I want to shut down?
If you know a more effective answer than 'Because you fucking have to.'... particularly when dealing with oilfield field hands, I am all ears.
User : Why does it (something, various).. ? Me : Because it fucking does.
User : Why do I have to (do something, various).. ? Me : Because you fucking have to.
User : I can't (do something, various)... Me : Reboot your computer. User : I just rebooted my computer. Me : Rebooting the computer without knowing why you are rebooting it won't fix it. Reboot it again. (waits...) User : Wow, that fixed it. Thanks! Me (under my breath) : D'oh. (actually there was a esoteric bug in SPX connections on a Netware network where computers configured as remote print servers would not reconnect the SPX connection the first time it was attempted after that workstation locked up because the Netware server thought that the SPX connection was still connected. Attempting to reconnect from the same MAC address failed, but the server knew something was wrong at that point and released the SPX connection and the next time the 'print server' configured computer tried to tell the server that it was ready to be a 'print server' it would let it. As it did all this in the boot script (autoexec.bat) it really would fail on the first reboot and work on the second reboot. I could have walked them through typing in the commands by hand, but having them reboot it again was generally (much) faster.)
There we go again, taking my perfectly funny post and not recognizing it for humor. You think I would learn, but I don't.
That the output from the grading program effectively is a hash (actually it is effectively a CRC number with six or seven values) and that there is no way to reconstitute an A quality essay from a single digit 'grade' is exactly why my post was funny.
Bah, right now the program takes an essay as input and outputs a grade. Simply reverse the pipe streams, push in an A and have the programs spit out a essay worthy of that A. Magic!
Ya think? Yea, it's called stealing a copy of the program, running your essay through it to see what it doesn't like, and continue to tweak it until the program gives the essay an A. Submit essay for grading, rinse, repeat.
Now with Computerized Moderation the famous Slashdot message site can pre-emptively down-mod 'Redundant' posts long before they are actually 'Redundant.' The computerized modding process, called 'e-modder', uses a 6-point rating scale and uses artificial intelligence to 'mimic the modding process of human readers - including doing stupid shit like modding the first instance of a concept as Redundant'.
One jumbo (20-oz) contains an entire day's worth of C8H10N4O2
Umm no. That's like looking on the little box of Girl Scout cookies where it says 'Servings per box : 12.' I don't know how to tell you and my ten other friends, but I'm eating this box by myself in one sitting - take that and put it in their Serving Size suggestion box.
Maybe a 20-oz has enough caffeine for a regular person, but something tells me that most of the people here don't even hit operating temperatures on that amount of caffeine. The reason I need to spread my day's intake of caffeine out over several hours is that my daily intake would probably kill me if I hit it all at once. Either my system would go into shock, or I would drown/serious caffeine junkie.
User : My inbox is full but I haven't got anywhere near a gigabyte of email yet. Tech support : Gigabyte? Oh yea - those are marketing gigabytes. We are going IPO, have you heard? User : So how much space have I really got? Tech : 10 megs, same as always.
They could cap upload streams at 64Kb/s and it would take four years to fill (if someone wanted to keep at it day and night) - heck in four years 1TB hard drives will be commonplace and cheap.
A little over two years for me. Yup. My upstream bandwidth is 128Kb/s. 128 * 1024 bits per second / 8 bits/byte = 16KB/s
16KB/s = 2^14KB/s
(scratch pad follows) 1M = 2^20 1G = 2^30 1T = 2^40 this the one we looking for 3600 seconds / Hour 24 hours per day 365 days per year
1TB / 128Kb/s = 2^40KB / 2^14(KB/s) = 2^26s
2^26 / (3600 x 24 x 365) = ~ 2.12 years of uninterrupted uploading to fill it. A little more, probably, since my upstream bandwidth is only theoretically 128Kb/s, and usually a little slower.
Actually if you had a full 1.544 Mb/s T1 as your upstream bandwidth it would be a LOT faster, more along the lines of 2 months, 4 days (my calculations were based on 128Kb/s, and a 1544Kb/s is 12x faster than that.)
Slashdot Mirror
Statistically speaking, a 400 person focus group is going to so accurately represent the population from which they were selected it is almost overkill. Bear in mind, however, that they don't represent users in general, but computer users that are smart enough to get into college, aged roughly 18-19 years old, and open minded enough to participate in a college survey regarding passwords on computers.
But yes, 400 people is way more than enough - heck you can usually predict the outcome of most elections using exit polls asking less people than that.
What kind of freak goes out when the sun is shining? Jeez, next someone on Slashdot is going to admit to eating garlic or having a mirror in the house.
I have long struggled with the issue of hacking on my laptop in the daylight. Funny thing, the old LCD screens that everybody hated on the early laptops worked GREAT out in direct sunlight. I would love to get my hands on one of those with a decent resolution - even though it would not be color it would be slick for use outside.
Many times I have tried to take my regular lappy outside and if the sun is shining directly on you, forget it. Even a deck umbrella or a big shady tree generally won't do it for you. You need to be roughly three degrees of freedom away from the sunlight (no direct sunlight, no reflected sunlight (like bouncing off the sidewalk onto you) and no two bounce sunlight (like sunlight bouncing off one wall, off another wall, then onto you.) Under a bridge, back in away from the light, or in a garage with the door open, those are pretty much ok but first and second generation reflected light simply overwhelms the screen (like using a laptop in a room or on a plane with the windows open, even if the sun isn't shining directly onto the screen.)
Overheating shouldn't be an issue, particularly if your laptop is running on battery and steps down the CPU.
The biggest environmental factor I would be aware of = keep your eyes and your hand on your laptop. All the time, be aware of your laptop. A nice laptop has ~steal me~ written all over it and in less time than it takes to go walk the lizard a n'er-do-well will swipe your $1,500 laptop and all your un-backed-up data (which is probably worth more than the laptop.)
Even half an hour is being generous, on your side. As a consultant the smallest unit of time I was even allowed to to quote was four hours, meaning that the client was looking at at least a $500 bill every time I got involved (or if I was involved, each time they changed directions or wanted something done differently because they changed their mind.) Needless to say, I was allowed to stay focused on the actual project and rarely got hit with mickey mouse crap like changing the colors or fonts or rearranging the buttons on the screen because the secretary likes the word 'Yes' instead of 'Ok'.
... there is significant rework that needs to be done and the associated ramp down / ramp up time is often a big chunk.
Granted if it was something reasonable and I could do it without shifting gears (mentally) I would usually slipstream it into the work I was doing and not write it up. If it was redoing work that I had already done, or worse if I recommended doing it one way and they mandated I did it some other way and after I was knee deep in it decide to go yet another direction or even in the direction I originally suggested
I run a WinCE handheld (a damn old one too, HP Jornada 680) with a wifi connection and the TermServer client - runs pretty nice too. Win2003Server on a 640x240 touch screen is almost usable on a regular fashion, and the 75% sized real keyboard is good enough for interaction with the machine (sucks for touchtyping, but still better than nothing.) It is like having an instant on baby laptop with an 8 hour battery and a P4/2.4GHz CPU and a Gig of RAM and a tiny screen, fold up and fit in my lab coat pocket.
I wonder if there is an X windows client for the old WinCE / Pocket PC handhelds.
-It's a demonstration of how you can make even a brick fly with the right thrust to weight ratio.
See also : F4 Phantom. That's the joke used when talking about that plane : that it is proof that with big enough engines even a brick will fly.
RIP the F4 Phantom. You were the most beautiful ugly plane I ever saw.
Windows has one-keystroke shutdown if you have one of the keyboards with the little 'Hibernate' buttons.
My Logitech has one right above the F1 key; I accidently re-discover it from time to time.
For you or I, or someone walking around doing impulse buying, it is a 2 hour affair. For an ex-employee of the grocery store that is intimately familiar with the product placement of everything in the store, buying a list of specific items would run somewhere between 1 and 4 different items a minute, no time increase for multiples of the same item. Creating the shopping lists such that they were coordinated with the layout of the store would speed this up.
If they had the flexibility of a 4 to 6 hour delivery window, several different orders could be rounded up and put onto the same delivery van for economies of scale during the delivery process.
If there was a way to encourage the customers to get their orders in at least 12 hours in advance and still have the flexibility of a 4 - 6 hour delivery windows, the scheduling process can scale even higher. Allow for 'immediate processing' at a premium, but give incentives to help the queue form in a smoother manner.
I agree that the margins could be much higher if it was the store running the service, but I wonder if it would be even marginally profitable as a third party service. A lot of unemployeed high school kids could be doing something like this if the front end was developed smooth enough.
I do it too. I think I figured it out.
You have been doing 'computers' a while and can feel the subtle vibrations and harmonics that happen when the computer is doing different 'stuff'. Mostly how the hard drive accesses all the different things all over the drive, but possibly noticing the blinkenlighten of the NIC also. You know how it feels when something is working right, and you know when something 'feels' wrong. Also, I guess sound plays into it also. Anyways, you can get a gut level feeling of what is wrong based on when it starts 'feeling' wrong, and then you have some sort of lead as to where to look to fix it.
Eight short beeps on boot doesn't mean a thing to a user.
Eight short beeps to you or I means the BIOS detected a video problem.
I was quick to distinguish between the mundane obvious rants that weren't worth explaining (ie, why do I have to turn on the computer so other people can print) and genuine support calls (ie, can you help me set up a spam filter.)
...' or 'well the manual says I should be able to ...' it is no longer an intelligent conversation leading to resolution. There is nothing you can possibly tell a user that will change the fact that 'that's how you do it'.
When someone asks a question along the lines of 'why do I have to
Why do you hit F1 for help? Because you do. There isn't a reason, really, other than that.
Why I have to hit CTRL ALT DEL to log in? Yes, you and I know the history of the entire Ct-Alt-Del key combo, and explaining it to the user isn't going to change anything, and they really don't care. If they are complaining about piddly stuff that is simple computer operation protocol, a little snipe back says 'I'm here to fix real problems, not listen to you whine about having to hit three buttons in order to start the computer.'
The IT Guy sounds like a prick, and there is a difference between his sarcasm and my being a little snappy in order to get across the point 'user, you know that is a stupid question, I know it is a stupid question, if I have to walk to your desk and point out that the computer doesn't work very well if it isn't plugged in I will smack you.'
Not that it matters much because I'm not a tech anymore so I don't get to do this any more (purely development environment now.)
And yes, your IT Guy reads all your email. He also knows what you earn, including bonuses and commissions. And he knows every thing you do on the Internet, because he watches you do it.
Either you are a master of the English language and are extending it to better express yourself, or that is the most fucked up aberration of written English I have seen in a very long time*. Or you are making fun of me, in which case ... good job /grin.
... this is improvisation and it has nothing to do with the music notes written on the sheet of paper, nor the original intent of the song writer. It has everything to do with hitting random notes as they come to your head and stringing them together in a way that becomes beautiful music. Improvisation is about doing it wrong, and having what comes out sound right. That is what makes it artistic expression, and why only the masters can do it correctly - until you are a master you really don't understand what makes 'good music' and can't invent a string of good sounding music off the top of your head while you are performing it.
A drum solo inserted into the middle of a song during a live concert, played freestyle, as an artistic expression of the musician
Same with language skills.
* Footnote : actually I have been to FARK so it isn't even close to the most fucked up aberration of written English I have seen in a very long time. Prideworthy - yes, but not record setting by a long shot.
I can see it now. New guy shows up at the office, first day on the job. Starts talking and in the same breath utters the words 'kibibyte' and 'gibibyte'. Two of the guys on the team hold him down and start beating him senseless, two others start picking apart his resume and application paperwork to get him fired that same day on a technicality.
Anybody that actually says either of those words in my presence is getting bitchslapped, no doubt, and probably sent packing during the next set of layoffs.
Why does the grocery store have to be the one filling the order, doing the delivery, or hosting the web site?
Here's a thought : affix a known order charge to the service, let people freeform their order or make a check list for them of known things with relatively known prices, when the order comes in print it out, drive to the grocery store, fill the basket, pay for it yourself, charge their credit card in the van on the way over (including the $10 or $15 or a % of the total) and drive them to their house. The lowest end grunts at the grocery store that have to run price checks and put returned merchandise back on the shelves know the store inside out so they could be hired as order fillers / delivery guys, you could pay them 50% more than what the grocery store pays and still make a profit. Perhaps work out a deal with the grocery store giving them ALL of your business in exchange for a 10% (or whatever) discount.
Need to scale up a little more, hire another grunt. The massive start-up costs in creating robotic facilities and food storage warehouses are completely avoided.
You didn't comfort it, you scared it.
Computers have numbers running through their veins. Slowly counting to a computer is like looking at a person and chanting 'blood, blood, blood, blood, blood.' Try that with me and I would do whatever you want too, hell yea.
Yea, I blatantly swiped it from the Jargon file Appendix - I can give credit where credit is due.
It's funny because that's how Americans really talk. Bet they didn't teach that line at the VPJ Acadamy of English.
... that's just ugly. George W Bush making up words to better express his point - that's funny. The word 'fucking' is in the language for a reason, both as an adverb and an adjective - and when used correctly adds significant value towards expressing a particular sentiment. I wouldn't use it as a verb in an office setting however, that would be wrong.
... say 'Because you fucking have to.' The caller will relate, will understand the reply, and will probably respect you more for expressing yourself in a manner that doesn't try to hide behind technical jargon - you will be talking their language. No joke.
Customer asks : Why do I have to hit the Start button when I want to turn off the computer?
Not how Americans talk : I am very happily to be helping you with your problems. You see it says right here that for you to be shutting down your computer you must be pressing the Start button and then verily nicely selecting the shut down option. It was my pleasure to be helpingly assisting you.
How an American that didn't personally know the caller would reply : Because you have to.
How an American that knows the caller on a personal basis would answer : Because you fucking have to.
Once someone has mastered a particular instrument in music, they then enhance and personalize the music, make it -their- music, through improvisation. The English language is the same way - develop a mastery of the language and then extend it to better express yourself. A first year English student making up words and pronouncing them wrong, using the wrong tense and timber
To all the overseas Tier I tech support phone professionals : next time you get a call that is so blatantly obvious, something along the lines of 'Why do I have to (do something obvious)?'
Develop a strong ancillary relationship with the people you work with, bond with them out of the office (that's the multiplayer arena with the blue and white part on top, green part on the bottom, and has vehicles) and after you have known them for a while you would be surprised at how well they react to all of those statements.
... particularly when dealing with oilfield field hands, I am all ears.
Why do I have to hold my mouse button down and move it to highlight a block of text, and why do I have to hold down the CTRL key before I hit the C key to copy the text to the buffer, and why do I have to click the Start button when I want to shut down?
If you know a more effective answer than 'Because you fucking have to.'
User : Why does it (something, various) .. ?
.. ?
...
Me : Because it fucking does.
User : Why do I have to (do something, various)
Me : Because you fucking have to.
User : I can't (do something, various)
Me : Reboot your computer.
User : I just rebooted my computer.
Me : Rebooting the computer without knowing why you are rebooting it won't fix it. Reboot it again.
(waits...)
User : Wow, that fixed it. Thanks!
Me (under my breath) : D'oh.
(actually there was a esoteric bug in SPX connections on a Netware network where computers configured as remote print servers would not reconnect the SPX connection the first time it was attempted after that workstation locked up because the Netware server thought that the SPX connection was still connected. Attempting to reconnect from the same MAC address failed, but the server knew something was wrong at that point and released the SPX connection and the next time the 'print server' configured computer tried to tell the server that it was ready to be a 'print server' it would let it. As it did all this in the boot script (autoexec.bat) it really would fail on the first reboot and work on the second reboot. I could have walked them through typing in the commands by hand, but having them reboot it again was generally (much) faster.)
There we go again, taking my perfectly funny post and not recognizing it for humor.
You think I would learn, but I don't.
That the output from the grading program effectively is a hash (actually it is effectively a CRC number with six or seven values) and that there is no way to reconstitute an A quality essay from a single digit 'grade' is exactly why my post was funny.
Bah, right now the program takes an essay as input and outputs a grade. Simply reverse the pipe streams, push in an A and have the programs spit out a essay worthy of that A. Magic!
-I'd bet its a real easy system to beat.
Ya think? Yea, it's called stealing a copy of the program, running your essay through it to see what it doesn't like, and continue to tweak it until the program gives the essay an A. Submit essay for grading, rinse, repeat.
Slashdot First With Computerized Moderation.
Now with Computerized Moderation the famous Slashdot message site can pre-emptively down-mod 'Redundant' posts long before they are actually 'Redundant.' The computerized modding process, called 'e-modder', uses a 6-point rating scale and uses artificial intelligence to 'mimic the modding process of human readers - including doing stupid shit like modding the first instance of a concept as Redundant'.
One jumbo (20-oz) contains an entire day's worth of C8H10N4O2
/serious caffeine junkie.
Umm no. That's like looking on the little box of Girl Scout cookies where it says 'Servings per box : 12.' I don't know how to tell you and my ten other friends, but I'm eating this box by myself in one sitting - take that and put it in their Serving Size suggestion box.
Maybe a 20-oz has enough caffeine for a regular person, but something tells me that most of the people here don't even hit operating temperatures on that amount of caffeine. The reason I need to spread my day's intake of caffeine out over several hours is that my daily intake would probably kill me if I hit it all at once. Either my system would go into shock, or I would drown
User : My inbox is full but I haven't got anywhere near a gigabyte of email yet.
Tech support : Gigabyte? Oh yea - those are marketing gigabytes. We are going IPO, have you heard?
User : So how much space have I really got?
Tech : 10 megs, same as always.
They could cap upload streams at 64Kb/s and it would take four years to fill (if someone wanted to keep at it day and night) - heck in four years 1TB hard drives will be commonplace and cheap.
A little over two years for me. Yup.
My upstream bandwidth is 128Kb/s.
128 * 1024 bits per second / 8 bits/byte = 16KB/s
16KB/s = 2^14KB/s
(scratch pad follows)
1M = 2^20
1G = 2^30
1T = 2^40 this the one we looking for
3600 seconds / Hour
24 hours per day
365 days per year
1TB / 128Kb/s =
2^40KB / 2^14(KB/s) = 2^26s
2^26 / (3600 x 24 x 365) = ~ 2.12 years of uninterrupted uploading to fill it. A little more, probably, since my upstream bandwidth is only theoretically 128Kb/s, and usually a little slower.
Actually if you had a full 1.544 Mb/s T1 as your upstream bandwidth it would be a LOT faster, more along the lines of 2 months, 4 days (my calculations were based on 128Kb/s, and a 1544Kb/s is 12x faster than that.)